As actors, and even sometimes just as human beings, we have a tendency to be too much in our heads. We spend painstakingly long hours rehearsing and employing repetition exercises in order to memorize our lines and feel comfortable enough to perform without a script. This leads up to tech and opening night, when the addition of the costumes, set, lighting, and audience breathe new life into our project. The natural adrenaline that occurs makes our show feel fresh and unpredictable for a short while. But, what about when we’ve been performing the same track for months or even years? We get so comfortable that our brain literally has the ability to go on auto-pilot, leaving us going through the motions or even anticipating our scene partners’ upcoming lines. When that happens, we’re able to have completely unrelated thoughts while our bodies are executing our track using natural muscle memory and brain recall. Isn’t the human body frekin incredible?!
But what does this do for our performance? Is a brand new audience member able to tell when an actor isn’t achieving a genuine connection with another performer on stage? And then, what about those moments when something goes wrong or just happens differently during a performance? Our brains immediately try to process the change and figure out a way to compensate to get the show back on its normal course. For some, this comes more easily than others.
I had the pleasure of participating in what we call a remediation program for a student who was having extreme issues with “being too much in his head”. Sure, he had memorized the questions he was supposed to ask me and practiced how to appropriately respond, but he was letting his script hinder his ability to make a genuine human connection with me as his patient. And what’s worse, he was questioning his own thoughts and methods as he was having them. He was so harshly criticizing his performance in his own mind that it would stop his thought process and completely derail the encounter. I was ready for the challenge. My job at this point is to try to talk him through the encounter and have an open dialogue about ways to have a sincere connection and show empathy with me as I talk about my ailment and my backstory. I often tell my students, “try to imagine you’re just having a conversation over coffee with a dear friend”. Social interactions and bed-side manor doesn’t come naturally to all med students, which makes this program incredibly important for their eventual success.
Our program director (who is also an actor) came up with some inventive exercises for aiding this student that we all got to work on together. First, we wanted to tackle the obstacle of mental multitasking. While I played the patient and we began the encounter, my program director stood behind me and threw a ball at the med student and instructed him to catch it and throw it back throughout the questioning. He threw it at completely random intervals, speeds, and directions in order to challenge the student’s ability to continue doing his job while also focusing on this other physical task. What it did was break the student’s concentration momentarily and test his ability to keep going when something unexpected is literally thrown at you. I was honestly impressed by his performance. When he was catching or throwing the ball, he tended to speak to me in a much more natural manor. He wasn’t trying to formulate thoughts or questions, he was just letting his natural reactions to my responses come through, which was beautiful to observe.
Then, it came time to tackle the issue of “going through the motions” during patient/doctor dialogue. Often times, these med students are so focused on their differential or time management that they forget to pause for empathetic moments when sensitive information is presented to them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a student blow past a conversation when I mention that I had a parent pass away or recently lost my job. Enter MEISNER EXERCISES!! Now, I studied opera and dance in school and unfortunately, have very little formal acting training. I’ve never participated in any Meisner exercises, so this was super exciting for me! I spent time leading up to the program researching Meisner techniques and reading as much as I could about the subject. Luckily, my program director is incredible and talked us both through it before and during. The goal was, again, to try and get him acknowledging my emotional state and practice how to appropriately respond. We started…
One more interesting thing happened at the very end of the exercise…The med student had asked me if I have any seasonal allergies, to which I responded that I have had hay fever since I was 14. He then asked me if I get shortness of breath or skin rashes with my hay fever. Well, this information isn’t written in our case, which means it’s improv time! Unfortunately, I know NOTHING about hay fever and for some crazy reason, I decided to respond with, “neither actually, I get a stuffy nose, watery eyes, and scratchy throat”. Well, after I said this, he looked at me strangely and I could tell he was struggling to process my answer. I started having panic-y thoughts. “Why the hell did I just say that?! I have no idea what symptoms naturally occur during hay fever and he can probably tell that my answer isn’t making sense because I gave him incorrect information. I should have just gone with the shortness of breath or skin rash!” Lol! Lord, I was feeling like I just messed this up. Here this med student is familiar with hay fever enough to know the common symptoms associated and I just said something completely unrelated that could affect his diagnosis.
Then, out of nowhere, the student stopped the encounter and told his director that he couldn’t get over the fact that he was pissed at himself for asking that question. He told us that he should have just asked me what symptoms I was experiencing instead of asking about the specific breathing or rash symptoms. He was judging himself so harshly that he literally couldn’t continue. He told us that he felt like his question was stupid and he shouldn’t be making little mistakes like that. Our program director then responded by encouraging him and making sure he understood that there are no “stupid” questions and that something so minor was not cause for alarm.
I decided it was time for me to chime in and make sure he understood how I perceived him. Maybe if he heard how he was coming off from someone else in the room, it might alter his self-perception. I told him that when he asked me whether or not I was experiencing shortness of breath or skin rashes, I assumed that those two symptoms were common with hay fever. I told him about my own thought processes and how I was also harshly criticizing my response at the exact same time. I told him that I perceived his question to be well-thought out and medically educated, while I was the one who “messed up”. Never did I think he was asking a stupid question or coming off poorly. It’s amazing how differently two people can interpret the same social interaction.
He was honestly surprised and relieved. He went on to tell us how his harsh self-criticism was rooted in childhood and that he was currently seeing a therapist about the issue. He was being his own worst critic. Standing in his own way of success.
What an amazing lesson to leave with today. MOST of the time, we let our own fears and insecurities keep us from achieving our full potential. We stop ourselves from achomplishing our goals and pursuing our dreams for fear of failure or fear of criticism from others.
For those interested in exploring the Meisner technique as a singer, I encourage you all to follow “Meisner in Music” based out of NYC. A company that my friend, Jillian founded!
https://www.meisnerinmusic.com/
